Reality

Kaira Jewel Lingo and Kosen Gregory Snyder – hosted by Adam Lobel

Sunday 20th September 2026

13:30 – 15:30 CEST | 07:30 – 09:30 EDT

Socio-political action and structures are shaped, in part, by our beliefs about the nature of the world and human nature. Views of fixed human nature can underpin ideas of a fixed or natural social order, a given horizon of possibility. Meanwhile, Buddhist perspectives consistently challenge such essentialism, pointing us towards the radically contingent and conditioned nature of self, society, and world.

Drawing on Buddhist teachings of emptiness, we approach reality as dynamic, and fundamentally indeterminate. When we are less bound to securing certainty or being “right,” a different kind of responsiveness becomes available—one that allows for experimentation, adaptation, and strategic flexibility in the face of complex conditions. But the shadow side of these ways of seeing can be a kind of distancing, complacency, aloofness. What is involved in ensuring that radical views of non-essentialism don’t dissolve commitment and solidarity, but deepen and empower them?

Hosted by Adam Lobel